The Virus Watch study in England and Wales, found that the serial interval of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is broadly similar to estimates from previous studies and there is no evidence that the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the U.K. (locally known as the Kent Variant) is associated with any change.
Serial interval is an estimation of the spread of the disease and is often measured as the time interval between symptom onset in a primary case and the onset of symptoms in the secondary cases infected by the primary case. Serial interval is an important parameter used in disease transmission models and can help guide control strategies.
Apart from the serial interval, the doubling time of disease also depends on the reproduction number (R). Diseases that have a shorter serial interval but similar R values will have shorter doubling times.
This work has been reported on here:
For a link to the full article please see:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.17.21257223v1